Two Years Gone
by dragonflybeach
Summary: In the first episode, Sam has been away at school for almost four years, but he and Dean mention they haven't seen each other in two years. This is what happened the time Sam saw his family while he was at Stanford.


"Uh, heya, Sam, this is Bobby. Bobby Singer. Gimme a call when you get this message, if you would."

Sam's heart plummeted.

There was only one reason Bobby Singer would be calling him.

He turned around in the middle of the courtyard, away from his second class, and went directly back to his dorm room, forcing himself not to hyperventilate.

His hands shook so badly that it took three tries before he dialed the number correctly.

"Hello." A familiar gruff voice barked through the phone.

"Which one is it?" Sam asked without preamble, his voice cracking like a pubescent kid in his panic.

"Sam?" Bobby asked. "Is that ... "

"It's me, Bobby." Sam rushed out. "Is it my dad or Dean?"

Bobby sighed. "Dean."

"Is he ... oh God, no, ... Bobby, tell me he's not ... " Sam sank to his knees on the worn carpet.

"He's alive." Bobby interrupted. "Mostly because he's too damn stubborn to die. He's just come out of surgery."

All the air in Sam's lungs left in a whoosh. "What happened?" He croaked.

"Chest wound. Punctured lung, it collapsed, chest cavity started filling up with blood." Bobby told him. "and of course they were down in some little town that's not much more than a wide spot in the road. They had to take him by helicopter to the trauma center. They lost him for a minute when they first got him to the hospital, but they said the surgery went well, and as long as there's no infection or anything, he'll be all right."

Sam stumbled up onto his feet long enough to take two steps backwards and collapse onto the futon. "Good. I'm glad. Tell him that ... tell him I'm thinking about him and let me know how he's doing, okay?"

"What are you talking about?" Bobby scoffed into the phone. "You need to go see him. If you ain't got the money, I can help you work that out."

"I can't, Bobby." Sam said softly.

"What do you mean you _can't?"_ Bobby grumbled into the phone.

"Do you not know what Dad told me?" Sam sighed into the phone. "He told me that if I walked out that door, to never come back."

"Oh hell's bells, boy, you've known that man all your life." Bobby sputtered. "How do you not know that he mouths off when he's upset?"

"He meant it that time, Bobby." Sam answered sadly.

"And besides, I didn't tell you that you needed to go see your Daddy. I said you need to go see Dean." Bobby argued.

"Dean never made any attempt to contact me, either." Sam hoped he didn't sound as whiny to Bobby as he did to himself. "He took Dad's side this time."

"Where do you think I got this number from, ya idjit?" Bobby nearly shouted. "_Dean!_ He knew where you were. He's kept tabs on you, hell, he's even driven out to California just to look and make sure you were okay a few times."

"Why didn't he ever call me?" Sam asked. "If he was here, in Palo Alto, why didn't he ever let me know?"

"Because he thinks you walked out on him." Sam could practically hear Bobby's eyes roll over the phone. "You broke his heart. All your life, he's been more than your brother. He's practically been your mama. And when you walked out without a backward glance and never made any attempt to contact him, he took it personally. But he still loved you enough to make sure you were all right."

"I didn't leave him." Sam insisted. "I went to college. I just wanted a normal life. Not sleeping four hours, chasing ghosts all night, and then filling out a couple fraudulent credit card applications or hustling a poker game before calling it a day. If I left anyone, I left Dad, but it wasn't really about him either. I just wanted to go to school. I didn't leave Dean."

"Yeah, well, Dean doesn't see it that way. You left, and you never bothered to call him or send a postcard or whatever." Bobby replied, then Sam heard him take a drink of something. "He thinks you left him behind, and I don't rightly blame him. He never called _you_, because he thinks _you_ don't want to talk to _him._ But right now, he needs ya, boy. So get your head out of your ass, swallow your pride, and get yourself down to Florida to see him."

"What if he doesn't want to see me?" Sam asked hesitantly.

Bobby huffed out an irritated breath directly into the phone. "This is Dean we're talking about, Sam. Of course he wants to see you. I guarantee that you walking into that hospital room will be the best thing that's happened to him in two years. Your old man is dying to see you too, but he won't admit it any more than you'll admit you miss him. There's two things you definitely got from John Winchester, and that's his messy hair and his damned stubborn pride. The two of you keep trying to out-stubborn each other, and one of these days it's gonna be too late. There won't be anybody left to hold out against. And Dean's caught in the middle, because he loves both of ya."

The silence stretched out so long that Bobby asked "Sam? You still there?"

"Yeah," Sam sighed. "I'll call and see about getting a flight. I'll go see Dean. But I"m not going to talk to Dad."

"He's in the trauma unit at Shands Hospital in Gainesville. You'll probably have to fly into Jacksonville and drive down." Bobby replied. "Call me back and tell me when you'll be there, and I'll try to arrange to get John away from the hospital. Shouldn't be too hard. You know as well as I do how much he hates hospitals."

"Yeah, thanks Bobby." Sam answered. "Let me know if anything changes with Dean."

"Will do." Bobby acknowledged, and then ended the call.

Ten hours later, Sam arrived at the hospital half an hour before visiting hours ended. Dean was still in ICU, but according to Bobby, unless he worsened during the night he would be moved to a step down unit in the morning.

Sam rang for the nurse to let him in, and washed his hands at the sink in the hall as instructed. Holding his breath, he slowly pushed open the door and walked into the room.

Dean looked pale. His face was swollen and bruised, both along the left side of the jaw from apparently being hit, and around his mouth and nose in the telltale markings that a respirator had been applied. He was attached to assorted tubes and wires, including an oxygen line running across his upper lip and a heart monitor beeping softly in the background.

Sam's vision blurred and he made a choking sound as he clamped his mouth shut to hold back the sob.

Dean looked up, and his face was lit with the brightest, most genuine smile Sam had seen in years.

"Sammy? What are you doing here?" Dean asked.

Sam shook his head, unable to speak.

"Oh, don't be such a little girl, Samantha." Dean teased, then softened. "It's okay, Sammy. I'm okay. It's just barely a scratch. Really. And they're giving me all the good drugs. Doesn't even hurt at all."

Sam's breath caught all over again as he realized how short of breath Dean was after speaking.

"It's good to see you." Dean continued, starting to wheeze slightly. "Did Bobby call you?"

"Yeah." Sam managed to choke out.

"You should have been here, Sammy." Dean smiled at him. "The spirit turned out to be one of the lawmen that was shot busting the Barker gang. You know, Ma Barker and her boys. They holed up down here and made their last stand. I kept thinking, Sammy would have loved to do the research on this one."

"Yeah." Sam nodded, trying to get a grip on his emotions. "Did Dad salt and burn the bones, or do you need me to do it?"

"I did it, Sammy." Dean laid his hand over one of Sam's where it gripped the side rail of the bed. "It's done, but thanks for asking."

Sam frowned in confusion. "But how? You couldn't have, as badly hurt as you were."

"This didn't have anything to do with the vengeful spirit." Dean admitted. "Dad and I stopped in a roadhouse on the way out of town. Couple of the locals took objection to him hustling pool. I tried to break things up, and I got a knife between the ribs."

Sam snatched his hands off the bed frame and fisted them at his sides. He forced himself to talk several breaths, trying to calm the sudden white hot rage before he spoke again.

"Dad almost got you killed? Again?" He snapped.

"It wasn't like that, Sammy." Dean defended. "He had no idea these guys were going to get violent. It was just a routine bet on a game of pool, like he's been doing for years."

"Except that once again, here you are in a hospital bed, in ICU this time, and almost died from some crazy shit that you shouldn't have even been a part of." Sam raged. "You should have finished high school and gone to college and have a normal job by now. Not this rat hole to rat hole existence, living off scams and con games while hunting down every ghost, demon, or wendigo that makes the news."

"It's not like Dad deliberately put me in danger." Dean protested.

"Are you still telling yourself that? Every time he drags you along to help him take on something that most people don't even believe exists, he is _deliberately_ putting you in danger."

Sam's whole frame shook with anger.

"But Dean listens to what I tell him." Came a voice from behind Sam. "He listens, and he obeys, and he doesn't run off and abandon his family."

"I didn't abandon my family." Sam turned to face his father. "I wanted to go to school. It was my so called _family_ who threw me away for wanting something for myself instead of following the whims of some selfish bastard hell bent on revenge no matter who it hurt."

"You abandoned your family. You walked away from the people who would have given their lives to keep you safe. You walked away from the quest to find the thing that killed your mother. Your mother, who died to protect you, Sam!" John shouted. "Who's the selfish bastard?"

"Dad! Sam!" Dean tried to yell over them, pushing himself up to sit on the side of the bed, and had to catch himself as he pitched forward, coughing.

"Dean!" Sam cried, lunging over to keep his brother from falling off the bed.

He noticed for the first time that Dean's hospital gown wasn't tied in the back, and his right side was covered by a thick white bandage with a tube coming out that was draining blood.

Three nurses burst into the room. Sam looked up at the monitor, noting that Dean's heart rate and blood pressure where outrageously high, while his oxygen level had fallen into the upper 80s.

"Both of you, _out!"_ an older nurse ordered.

"See what you've done?" John spat at Sam.

Sam started to rise, but Dean's arm locked around his neck.

"No," Dean rasped. "Let me talk to my brother a minute."

"Not if this is what it's going to do to you." The nurse shook her head.

Sam eased Dean back onto the bed, then turned the puppy dog look on the nurse.

"Just for a minute." He pleaded. "I haven't seen him in two years. I promise, I'll stay calm, I won't upset him."

"One minute." The nurse conceded. "But if his pulse and BP don't start going down immediately, I'm banning you from this room."

"Thank you." Sam smiled.

Sam waited until John and the nurses left the room, then turned back to his brother.

"Dean, come to California with me." He begged. "We'll get an apartment together. You can get a real job. I love it there and you will too. Just come back with me."

"I can't, Sammy." Dean shook his head. "If I leave Dad, he'll be dead within a month. He'll either do something stupid on a hunt or he'll drink himself to death."

"Those are _his_ choices." Sam sighed. "You can't be responsible for him. You can't give up your whole life to take care of everyone else."

"That is my life, Sammy." Dean answered sadly. "I took care of you, but you don't need me any more. So now I take care of Dad. You don't know, Sammy. You don't know how much he misses you. He lost mom, then he lost you. If I left him too, that would be the end of him."

"Dean, don't do this." Sam pleaded.

"I have to." Dean squeezed his brother's hand.

"I don't want the next time I see you to be your funeral." Sam bit his lip, holding back tears that were threatening again.

"It won't be. I promise." Dean vowed. "I've never broken a promise to you before, Sammy, and I'm not going to start now."

"I can't do this, Dean." Sam shook his head. "I can't give up school and my life to watch Dad continue to self destruct and you keep trying to stop it."

"Don't." Dean answered softly. "Go back to school. You're happy there. I know where you are if I need you, and you know where I am if you need me."

"Your minute's up." the nurse informed the two of them, sticking her head back in the door. "He needs his rest, so he can get better."

Sam nodded and stood. "Please, Dean." He begged one last time.

"Don't, Sammy." Dean shook his head.

Sam shrugged. "Get better. Take care of yourself."

"You too, Sammy." Dean tried to smile, but this one didn't make it to his eyes.

Sam followed the nurse out of the room.

When he saw his father in the hall, Sam raised his head, straightened his back, and walked by without a word.

John made no attempt to speak to him either.


End file.
